


how can I keep you inside my lungs

by partialconstellations



Series: you run in my veins [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Cunnilingus, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Theon-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialconstellations/pseuds/partialconstellations
Summary: Theon forces himself to meet her eyes, Robb’s eyes, and not flinch. It always went unspoken between them, the things they did, what was said during and after. And Sansa, she shakes her head, softly, and then frowns at him. This is the moment he loses her, he can tell. Heʼs never deserved her, any of them, it just took her a while to catch on.“I wouldn’t have let you touch me, if I did not want you to. I certainly wouldn’t have fucked you, if I did not want to.”





	how can I keep you inside my lungs

**Author's Note:**

> It’s the follow up that nobody asked for but that you’re getting anyway because I need to not think about exams for two hours (and this sat unfinished in my docs for way too long but also, it’s 2 am, so who tf even knows anymore)

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile Sansa the Lady of Winterfell (the Queen in the North, she ought to have been, he thinks to himself) with Sansa the little lady who had sewn and sung and danced. Back when her dreams were of gallant princes and valiant knights, tales and songs, not nightmares of sadistic lords and princes and deceitful men who didn’t keep their hands to themselves, horror stories and screams of pain.

She’s so in control of the mask she wears during the day – during council meetings, when she appeases the Northern lords, when she talks to peasants and the maester, when she prepares the castle for winter and war and siege – that sometimes, Theon forgets that it _is_ one.

But it’s easier to remember at night, when she allows herself to drop the mask, sinks into her chair and pours herself a cup of wine. She pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers, resting her eyes for a moment and suddenly, she looks exhausted, so much older than her years. She’s older than Robb was when he died, but still too young. Sometimes, Theon forgets. They’ve been through too much together. “Are you alright, my lady?” he asks, hurrying to her side.

“Don’t call me that. Especially not here, not now.” She sounds weary.

He allows himself a small smile. “He always said the same thing. Why don’t any of you want your bloody titles?”

“Not from you. Never from you. You’re family, Theon, in all the ways that count.” She takes a sip and fixes her eyes on his face. It burns, where she’s looking at him and he has to force himself not to look away. She doesn’t like it when he does, when shame overwhelms him. Shame is only a small step removed from Reek. Sansa calls him by his name more often, to help him remember, force him not to fall.

“And,” she adds, blithely, “you’ve been inside of me. My fingers have been up your arse. I think we’re beyond formalities.” Sansa the little lady would have never dared to speak such crass words, never mind do the acts they describe. Sansa the Lady of Winterfell does blush, yes, but her gaze remains steady on him, not ashamed of it. Any of it. Him.

She has no time for such foolishness any longer. Perhaps she simply doesn’t have the patience.

For too long, she’s been the one to take care of him, even when she desperately needed someone to take care of her, when she needed to take care of herself. He hadn’t been there for her, not truly. She had been, for him, given him what he needed, let him pretend.

She’d given and he’d taken. And Sansa had never asked for anything in return, except his company and to come to her when he got overwhelmed. And that, in truth, was also more for his benefit than hers. Later, she started asking for his counsel, valued his opinion over all others’. Why, when she had so many lords and ladies at her beck and call, first of all the Lady Brienne, a knight in all but name, he’d never know. Perhaps because they’ve been each other’s world for so long; perhaps because she sees something in him that he doesn’t. Either way, he is hers and he will be until the day he dies. Not because he owes her (he does, and more), but because he cannot imagine a life that doesn’t have Sansa Stark, wolf of the North, in it anymore.

Even now, when they’re back in Winterfell, Ramsay literally torn apart, the banners of the flayed man burned, surrounded by the Starks’ bannermen, it still feels like it’s just the two of them. Especially now that Snow has gone south to treat with the Dragon Queen. His presence has been lingering over them like a shadow and he’s made Theon feel smaller, like he’s been demanding too much of Sansa’s attention.

Now, it feels like it’s just Sansa and Theon again, clinging to what is left of their sanity and to each other, like two drowning men at sea.

Even now, he forgets, sometimes. He manages to find his way to her rooms instead of the kennels most days, though, when he does. She asked him to come to her, so he does. It’s almost instinct at this point.

“Theon.” Sansa’s voice is gentle but firm, pulling him back to the present. He stares at her and for just a second, he thinks he’s looking at Robb. Cursed Tully eyes. “You were leagues away.” She takes another sip, still looking at him over the brim of her cup.

He shakes his head, trying to get rid of thoughts of Robb. That’s a dangerous path to go down; Robb deserves to rest and Sansa deserves to be treated as more than just a shadow of her brothers. If the Northern lords don’t understand that, at least Theon does. In time, they will see her, too. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Sansa smiles at him, but it barely reaches her eyes. She looks concerned, he can see the small twist of her mouth. Maybe she’s worried he’ll snap soon, that their time is running out. Maybe she’s truly just worried for him.

“For not treating you like you deserve.” He hangs his head, before he remembers that he’s not supposed to do that anymore.

“Theon, no.” There it is again, his name on her lips, reminding him of who he is.

“I took advantage of you and I called you your brother’s name. I thought of him, all the time. It’s not right a-and … unworthy of you.” Theon forces himself to meet her eyes, Robb’s eyes, and not flinch. It always went unspoken between them, the things they did, what was said during and after. And Sansa, she shakes her head, softly, and then frowns at him. This is the moment he loses her, he can tell. He’s never deserved her, any of them, it just took her a while to catch on.

“I wouldn’t have let you touch me, if I did not want you to. I certainly wouldn’t have fucked you, if I did not want to.” Theon isn’t sure when she’d got up, but here she is now, so close. Her hand is cupping his cheek, fingers curled into him. He smells the wine on her breath and when she continues talking, he can feel her breath on his lips. She’s looking into his eyes and he has to fight every urge he has to run away and hide. “I thought we were going to die before we ever reached Castle Black, Theon. That, or get captured, that our escape was all part of Ramsay’s scheme. I didn’t want to die knowing that Ramsay Bolton was the only man to touch me.”

“But, you said, the Lady Margaery?” he begins, confused, but Sansa cuts him off, with almost a girlish giggle.

“The only _man_ ,” she repeats, emphasising the last word. Then she sobers. “You made it all real, Theon. The good and the bad.” It’s like she wants to reassure him, like she owes him a single thing in the world.

“You could have anyone now,” he protests, a desperate attempt to make her see that this is wrong. _He_ is wrong for her.

“I don’t want anyone. I don’t trust anyone. I want _you_.” She says it like he’s stupid for not understanding the most obvious thing in the world. Her hand is caressing his cheek, the other is looking for his, mangled and torn as it is. She laces her fingers, hand whole, through his, what is left, and then she leans in and presses a kiss to his lips, soft and short and sweet.

“You deserve more,” he insists, feeling like a stubborn child, trying to explain to an adult why there simply had to be another way. Someone whole. The words die before they even leave his mouth. They have had this argument before.

She pulls away from him, then, and he can feel her mood turn. She’s getting angry, frustrated. He practically sees the frown form on her face, her brow furrow. “Enlighten me, then. What do I deserve more of?”

“Someone who calls you by your own name, to start.”

“You haven’t called me by his name since before Jon left,” she corrects him. It’s not the first time they dance around saying Robb’s name. Like they’re trying to make up for all the times it’s slipped from Theon’s lips by accident.

“I never should have in the first place. I used you. It’s not right.”

“I trust you, Theon. That is enough. Everything – and anyone – else can burn, for all I care. We’re the ones that matter. We’re the ones that are still here.”

“But—”

“No. What is it you want? Do you want his permission? His forgiveness? You know as well as I do that he’d give it, without a second thought.”

He doesn’t have an answer for that, so he just looks mutely at her, hoping against all reason that she can read him better than he does himself.

She looks at him for a long moment and then nods. “The crypts, then.”

* * *

It’s stupid, really. They both know Robb’s body is not here, but to look at his statue calms Theon down, somewhat. It only marginally looks like him anyway, but maybe that’s for the best. The sculptor had taken too much inspiration from the other Starks down here instead of the living, breathing one that had commissioned the statue.

The curls are wrong, they’re too neat, and he looks stern and distant, too much like the King in the North, not like the boy he had been before. The boy he should have stayed, if the gods were just. Robb would have been a good peacetime ruler, kind and just. Instead, he died a wartime king, likely to be remembered as nothing but a fool, if at all. It depended on who would write the history books, Theon supposed.

“I don’t like it either,” Sansa says, her arm around Theon’s lower back. She rests her head against his shoulder, just slightly. “He looks too much like Father.” Theon nods agreement.

Instead of focusing on all the things that are wrong, Theon pulls away from her, kneels and bows his head down to the inscription. He traces it with his fingers, even though he knows the words by heart. They’re simple, in the way of the Northmen.

ROBB I  
THE YOUNG WOLF  
281-300

KING IN THE NORTH AND OF THE TRIDENT  
298-300

SON, BROTHER, HUSBAND, FATHER  
_THE NORTH REMEMBERS_

Below that, he knows, it says _Talisa Maegyr Stark and their child._ Talisa’s inclusion on Robb’s memorial wasn’t welcomed by the Northern lords, but Sansa had shouted them down, scolded them like unruly children. It hadn’t felt right to either Theon or Sansa to not include the woman Robb had loved, the woman who had been his queen. However much it hurt him.

“I’m so sorry.” He stops, lost for words. There is so much he could say, so much he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how. “Now and always,” he whispers instead, hoping Robb will understand, and turns to look up at Sansa. The tears in her eyes mirror his own. She offers her hand to him and he grips it, letting her help him up. She pulls him into a tight hug that feels like she’s going to crush him. Quiet sobs are racking through her.

“Thank you, Sansa,” he says, mouth against her ear before he places a kiss on her cheek.

“Never apologise to me again.” Sansa pulls herself out of the hug but doesn’t let go of his shoulders. She holds his gaze. “Promise me, Theon.”

“I promise.” He caresses her cheek, tries to make the movement as natural as it once had been, and pulls her in for another kiss. She opens her mouth to him and then pulls away again. “Not here.”

Theon nods and takes her hand, leading her out. With a last gaze at Robb’s stern expression, they leave the crypts.

“Farewell, Robb,” Theon mouths, before they round the corner. Deep down, he knows he is never going to come back down here again.

* * *

It’s not a conscious decision, when he starts kissing Sansa, back in her chambers. He just suddenly is, and she’s kissing him back, forcefully, sucking on his lower lip.

It’s likely still not right, what they’re doing, after visiting Robb’s statue. His brother, his only friend. In another lifetime, they could have been lovers, perhaps. But Sansa is right, as she is in most things: What matters is the here and now. And so he pushes Robb’s cornflower eyes from his mind and looks into Sansa’s instead, cards his hands through her copper hair, savouring how different that is, at least, from Robb’s.

And then he nudges her towards her bed, not pushing her, just suggesting, hoping she will agree. She looks at his eyes for a moment – what she’s looking for, he doesn’t know but she seems to find it, because she’s walking backwards, taking him with her.

His hands feel clumsier than usual when he’s unlacing Sansa’s dress but she puts a stabilising hand on his. She isn’t helping him or doing it for him, just steadying his and once he finally manages, the reward is all the sweeter.

He peppers Sansa’s skin with kisses, covers every inch of her, traces every scar before he moves down, circles her with his tongue and then he slows down, drawing it out, until she’s practically begging him.

She’s got her hands in his hair and she’s probably not even aware how tight her grip is but she comes with a deep, guttural moan and her grip tightens and it makes Theon’s stomach jump.

Likely before she’s even recovered, she drags him up by the shoulders, kisses him ferociously and she must taste herself, he can still feel her wetness on his chin, and while she does, she pushes down his breeches and it’s truly impressive, because her fingers are already oiled up and inside of him before he is able to process anything.

He moans, against her lips and then into her neck, as she adjusts the angle and hits that sweet spot inside of him and he climaxes, hard.

* * *

When Theon tries to leave, Ghost, muzzle slightly pink, is in the hallway and, as soon as Theon opens the door, is blocking his way out very insistently. That beast is such a mother hen. Sansa, too, is calling him back and Theon relents, slipping under the covers and furs with her, Ghost laying down at the foot of the bed.

Sansa’s chambers become their shared chambers after that.

And if her bannermen disapprove, they’re wisely keeping their opinions to themselves. Snow, once he returns, is another story. Sansa does most of the fighting with him for them, is savage in her defence of Theon. After that, Theon is inclined to believe that – mad as it still seems to him – she truly does want only him.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: when will I stop writing the Starks mourning Robb/putting up a statue of him that nobody likes is the first thing Sansa does after retaking Winterfell? Not today.
> 
> ETA: fixed a couple formatting/tense errors that _somehow_ survived my _rigorous_ editing process last night. /sarcasm
> 
> Title from [Wolves Without Teeth](https://youtu.be/VAI5GSyXMjA) by Of Monsters and Men.  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> Kudos, comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.


End file.
